Fired For Not Answering Phone

punto123

My friends has been a long-term manager for a retail store, last week he did not answer his phone when he was called due to a break-in at the store, which is against company policy, so they sacked him.

Is something like that gross miss conduct, which they can fire you for? ( even though he has done nothing else wrong whilst been there ) because it is company policy, seems a little unfair to me.

elsien

So they've had an investigation and followed the disciplinary process through to dismissal in a week? You may need to give a slightly more detailed timeline.

System

Agree - a few more facts needed. Answering the phone during a break-in does sound like a health and safety protocol to me. I would have just said "I couldn't get to the phone as I thought someone was inside"...unless, there's probably more to this than that. Perhaps OP's friend was on a last warning?

charlie3090

Your post is not very clear,

was there a break in at store when it was closed and he is supposed to respond and deal with it?

If he is a keyholder,is there not more than one in case the first is not available?.

I would presume that they could not expect him to respond if he was for example,driving ,he could have been swimming or any thing where you do not have your phone.

How long before he responded,or did he not respond at all?.

I think there may be more to this that what you have put in your post.

punto123

Thanks for the input, i will find out more details from my friend , and come back, thank you

Brynsam

punto123 wrote: »

Thanks for the input, i will find out more details from my friend , and come back, thank you

Why not get your friend to post direct if he wants help (obviously ensuring he doesn't identify himself or the store)?

Comms69

I suspect there was a break in and he was called ( at home or whatnot ) to attend rather than being at the store.

pmduk

Or alternatively there is more to his disciplinary record.

TBagpuss

Like others, I think it depends on the situation. But if he is a keyholder and his job includes responding to a call out, and he failed to do so, then it is certainly something that they can legitimately discipline him for.

Whether it is serious enough to amount to gross misconduct is likely to depend on the full circumstance including any previous similar issues, and exactly what the policy says.

I would normally expect there to be more than one key holder, but it may be a fairly major issue. I know that with our security company they used to call the keyholders first then go out to the premises, so it was much more expensive if the key holders don't answer.

Rosemary7391

It's also a case of whether he was on call that week - in which case he was expected to be able to answer the phone straight off. Or he's supposed to call back within half an hour and didn't bother until he came to work the next day or similar. Depends on the system and what he actually did.

TELLIT01

We need to know a lot more detail. What does his contract say about this situation? Is there an on-call rota? Did he respond at all, or did he just ignore the call? Those are just the first 3 to spring to mind.